


your softness is cruelty, your mercy unkind

by wartransmission



Series: of hearts unknown and names untold - a mafia AU [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Implied off-screen violence, M/M, Mafia AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-02-02 09:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12724134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wartransmission/pseuds/wartransmission
Summary: Yuuri had thought, once, that his family thought him weak because of how soft he is.(They don't think so. Far from it, actually.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a continuation of the Mafia AU! I strongly recommend reading the first fics in the series so you're not lost on what's happening in the fic below ♥

Yuuri had thought, once, that his family thought him weak because of how soft he is.

They never tell him this. Of course they don’t; even if his family is the way it is, they have never been disparaging towards him. He is their only son with a trail of blood ever in his wake, and he does his job well enough that they never have reason to complain.

Still.

He wonders.

It’s this softness that leads him to hide Viktor away when he finds him, his breath calm out of his mouth despite the rabbit-heart pounding in his chest. Viktor is a perfect partner in stealth, for all that his silver hair is unmistakable under his newsboy cap. He’s smiling blithely when Yuuri looks back to him, looking far too cheerful for a man missing as he twines his fingers with Yuuri’s own.

He tries to think if 23 is too young an age to have a heart attack. Viktor certainly seems keen on helping him discover the answer to his question, with the way he strides until he’s same-paced with Yuuri and clinging onto his arm with his free hand.

“What are you _doing_ here?” Yuuri hisses at him, letting himself be pulled close until they’re a picture-perfect couple casually walking down the street. He _hopes_ no one notices just how familiar the foreigner’s face is, because god knows he wouldn’t want to be discovered as a Katsuki-gumi _wakagashira_ and _killed_ in the same moment just for being around the Nikiforova Bratva’s favorite son.

“I wanted to figure something out,” Viktor says glibly, not completely answering the question.

“So many people have been _panicking,”_ Yuuri says, tugging him along without looking back at him. He knows he’s showing his hand by admitting to worrying about him when they’re barely friends, but Viktor needs to _know_. “There were rumors that Alyana Nikiforova’s son had gone missing, and no one could verify if you’d been kidnapped, or in hiding, or-”

“Yuuri,” Viktor interrupts, leaning in closely enough that they could kiss if either of them moved a centimeter closer. Yuuri squeaks- actually _squeaks_ \- but Viktor goes on to speak, perhaps not noticing the sudden flush of heat in his face. “ _Breathe_. I’m here. I wasn’t kidnapped, I’m not,” he hesitates, pulling back to make an indecisive gesture with a flick of his free hand, “I’m technically in hiding? Somewhat. I’m not trying very hard to hide, if you were able to find me.” Then he smiles brightly, looking so beautiful that Yuuri’s eyes _hurt_ with looking at him. “But that was the point, so! I’m only somewhat in hiding.”

“You _wanted_ me to find you? Why?” Yuuri insists, clenching his free hand to his side before he can grasp at his chest with a literal show of how shaken he is.

“I told you,” Viktor says, smile becoming oddly- soft? in a way that makes Yuuri feel nervous. He doesn’t understand what _that_ look is for, and he certainly doesn’t think he’s done anything to warrant receiving it. “I came here to figure something out. That involved finding you, or you finding me, and here we are.”

“And?” Yuuri asks, looking away before he can get too lost in Viktor’s eyes. He’d really rather not pull attention to them by stumbling into a roadblock just because he was distracted. “Did you…figure out what you had to figure out? Will you be going back now?”

“Oh, of course not,” Viktor says with an audible smile (he can _hear_ the cheeriness in his voice from a mile away, he’s sure). “I’ve only just begun with figuring out what it is that I came here for!”

It would probably be easier to just suffer a heart attack now than die a gruesome death from halfway-kidnapping Alyona Nikiforova’s son. He just doesn’t understand why Viktor isn’t taking this _seriously_ , given the position that he’s in. He’s supposed to be the acting Pakhan now that his mother is growing older, and yet, here he is.

With Yuuri.

_In Japan._

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asks, less for politeness’ sake and more to ensure the speed of Viktor’s return to his family. Had he been any younger, he might have wished for Viktor to stay longer so he can learn from him or just- _be_ with him, but he’s a little older now. More mature.

He doesn’t want to cause any conflict between their families by being selfish enough to keep his idol by his side.

“You could take me out on a couple of dates,” Viktor suggests.

Yuuri keeps walking, not entirely processing the words when he first hears them. Then he stops walking, Viktor bumping into his back, and whirls to look back at him with a bewildered expression, eyes wide and mouth gawping as he stares at him. “I don’t- what _?_ ” he asks in a hiss, pulling back and taking his hand with him when Viktor smiles in amusement at his confusion. “ _What?_ ”

“You heard me, Yuuri,” Viktor says, clearly amused still as he reaches up to tip Yuuri’s mouth closed with a finger to his chin. “Go on a date with me, and I’ll consider going back. Or not, depending on what happens.”

“I,” Yuuri begins, pauses, before shaking his head with a weary sigh. What is it with people of power always trying to toy with him like this? This isn’t even the first time he’s been ‘flirted’ with by someone of Viktor’s stature- Chris certainly wasn’t shy about his intentions- but it’s always so _exhausting_ having to deal with it. Just because they don’t know that he’s important to the Katsuki-gumi, they always assume that he can be trifled with like a commoner who’s expected to say yes to their every whim.

 

And yet, for all the iron in his blood, he’s still so damnably _soft_.

 

He doesn’t answer as he turns back around, nor does he say anything when Viktor follows after him and curls a hand over the inside of his elbow. He’s quiet still when he finally reaches his car- an unassuming _kei_ car that he’d reinforced with bulletproof windows- and gestures for Viktor to get into the passenger seat.

“I don’t understand why you’re here,” Yuuri begins, all while buckling himself up and starting the engine of his car. “And I can’t pretend to understand why you would leave your family for the sake of- whatever it is you’re looking for. But I want to believe that you’re more than the rumors people keep telling about you, and that you have a serious reason to be here.” He looks at Viktor, hands gripping onto the wheel for some semblance of reality, and breathes in. He says, with a gravity that feels like lead in the pit of his chest, “I just want to know, because this is important to me.”

Viktor nods.

Yuuri breathes out.

“Are you here to try and take my family down?”

Viktor blinks at him. His eyes are wide, surprise written all over his face, and Yuuri smiles weakly. He says, “I don’t see any other reason for you to be here, Viktor. You must understand that. And if that’s the reason, then-”

“ _No._ ”

Yuuri is the one who blinks this time, staring in surprise at Viktor. “No?”

“No, no, that is absolutely not why I am here,” Viktor insists, looking almost panicked as he reaches out to, perhaps, console Yuuri with a hand on his forearm. “I- the Katsuki family has been perfectly reasonable with us, there’s no reason for me to start a conflict.”

Yuuri regards him with a doubtful look. Viktor sounds perfectly honest, even more so with his concern, but Yuuri doesn’t know him well enough to be able to tell. “And yet you’re here, in my country, when your people are trying to look for you. They might think we’ve kidnapped you if they find you with us.”

“Yakov- my handler knows that I chose to leave,” Viktor says, a sigh leaving his lips as he releases Yuuri’s arm from his hold. Instead, he uses that same hand to brush up the locks falling in his face, reminding Yuuri of a time when he thought that Viktor could work just as well as a model. “The information was late to arrive, but he knows. I’m sure he’s ready to strangle me by now, but he can contact me if he wants to know where I am.”

“And,” Yuuri begins, hesitant, “he was okay with that?”

Viktor laughs. Yuuri struggles not to stare at him in awe. “Of course not,” Viktor says, one hand to his chest as if choked up with amusement at the very thought of it. “Yakov would have never let me go if he knew my plans prior to my going ahead with them.”

“Then why? If you knew that he wouldn’t agree?”

“Well,” Viktor says, smiling as he taps his fingers over the bottom edge of his car door’s window. “Sometimes there are just some things that you have to do, especially when you don’t understand them.” Then he looks at Yuuri, who can only look at him through his peripheral vision as he starts to drive out of the parking lot. Viktor adds, tone light, “We wouldn’t be able to get our answers otherwise, would we?”

Yuuri huffs, still confused.

Viktor laughs again, so sweet a sound and carefree, and Yuuri-

Yuuri has always been a little in love with him, if he were to be honest.

“You wanted a tour?” he asks, maneuvering his car into the flow of traffic with an ease that Mari has always teased him for.

Viktor makes an amused sound that’s not quite a laugh, but not quite a hum either. “Don’t pretend that you didn’t hear me, Yuuri. I said that I wanted a date.”

Yuuri hums at the very thought, still disbelieving. “Same thing,” Yuuri replies, not wanting to play into Viktor’s game- _completely_ , anyway. “Our part of the country is small, for all that our family is big, and there’s barely anything here I can invite you to resembling a date.”

Viktor laughs softly under his breath, and Yuuri needs to tell his heart to calm down if it wants him to continue living. Viktor says, “Don’t you know, Yuuri? It’s who you’re with that counts, not the place itself.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Yuuri says, distracted as he rounds the corner heading to his lone apartment set away from his family home for security reasons. “I’ve never dated anyone before.”

Viktor makes what seems to be a delighted sound, and Yuuri is perturbed at how cute it is coming from such a powerful man. It’s- it’s _ridiculous_ , to even consider the thought inside his head. “Then I would be your first?” Viktor asks, so blatantly cheery that Yuuri feels himself blush from embarrassment.

“I don’t know why that matters,” he says simply, refusing to be baited by Viktor’s child-like enthusiasm. “There was never any time, and it’s dangerous as it is.”

“And if your date is dangerous enough on his own?” Viktor asks, turning his head just enough that Yuuri can see him smiling slyly at him. “Would that offset the inherent danger of dating into your family?”

Yuuri, for the first time in a long time in front of anyone who isn’t family, _laughs_.

(Viktor, unnoticed by Yuuri due to his amusement, looks absolutely _smitten_ at the sight of him laughing.)

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Yuuri says, lips trembling still with laughter as he wipes at the corners of his eyes with one hand. “And I’m not sure either of our families will approve, especially yours. You’re the head of your family and we’re living in different countries entirely. It wouldn’t be feasible.”

“I could always ask you to live with me,” Viktor offers.

Yuuri is thankful for the calm that’s long-since lived in his bones ever since he was brought up in his family, because if he didn’t have it, he’s damn sure he’d have crashed his car by now. As it is, he just wheezes out a surprised breath, before stopping his car at the red light and staring incredulously at Viktor. “Do you say that to all of your lovers? Because I don’t think you understand just what it is you’re asking.”

“I’ve always wanted to experience what domesticity is like,” Viktor says, and that-

that does not explain _anything_.

Sputtering, he complains, “I’m not- I’m not some _servant_ -”

“Oh, no! I didn’t mean to imply that you’ll be doing my chores,” Viktor says, amused as Yuuri chokes on a breath. “I just meant that I’d like to have a partner to cook for. Someone to come home to, you know? But with my family as it is, my business is in my home instead of outside it. It’s…well, exhausting, to say the least.”

“What, and you want someone to pretend to have a normal life with?” Yuuri asks, bemused still as he sees the green light and starts driving again. He takes them through the circular route of his apartment, because for all that Viktor doesn’t seem to care of the danger of his presence, Yuuri knows better than to directly lead any possible spies to his home.

“That’s not possible,” Viktor says, looking forward and out through the window when Yuuri peeks at him. “The family business being what it is, there’s no chance for any of us to live a normal life without ending up dead or caught.”

“Then why me?”

Viktor gives him a small smile, and Yuuri feels his heart beating a little faster in turn. “Because you understand what it’s like,” Viktor says. “I don’t know what your part is in your family, but I can tell that you already know more than the average civilian. You know what this kind of life is like.” Then his smile widens as he leans back, casually leaning by the car window as he props his cheek on his knuckles. “You’re not scared of me either, despite the power that you know I hold. I like that.”

“You’re interested because I’m not like the others, basically,” Yuuri says, some of his dissatisfaction possibly seeping into his tone going by the frown that starts to show on Viktor’s lips.

“You don’t sound like you like that,” Viktor says, a caution to his words as he regards Yuuri with a look.

“It just sounds,” Yuuri pauses, annoyed as he taps at the wheel with his fingers, “cliché, is all. It sounds scripted. It’s like you’re telling me what you think I want to hear, as a person you’re trying to seduce.”

Viktor falters at that, his initial frown dropping entirely to leave his expression blank. Yuuri doesn’t say anything more, remaining silent as he parks his car in the lot some steps away from his apartment. Viktor doesn’t say anything either, looking to be deep in thought even as Yuuri turns off the engine of his car.

It’s quiet.

“Is there any other answer you would want?” Viktor asks, voice soft.

Yuuri hums. He takes out the key from the ignition before unbuckling himself from his seat, not bothering to let Viktor know his answer as he gets out of the driver’s seat and out of his car. Viktor, when he gets out of the car to follow after him, looks like a drooping flower abandoned by the sun and the earth. What energy there had been in him seems drained, as if Yuuri had pulled the rug out from under him by being truthful with him.

“You didn’t answer my question on why you’re here,” he tells Viktor, who looks up at him in confusion. He sighs, pocketing his keys in his right front pocket. “You can’t seem to disclose the real reason for you coming to Japan. That’s dangerous for me as it is. I shouldn’t even be with you, because of that.”

Viktor blinks, looking lost. It sits heavily in Yuuri’s chest, how Viktor looks so much younger and vulnerable than he should be with all that his name carries. This man that Yuuri has admired for so long, the one person he’d thought to idolize because of his cool ferocity, is standing before him, asking for answers.

 

Yuuri has no business being with him.

And yet.

 

(He’s soft, still.)

 

He holds out his hand. Viktor blinks once, twice, in succession. He looks cautious, as though the hand will be taken back if he were to take it, and Yuuri feels his heart breaking. If Viktor was only acting now, trying to get in his good graces, it’s certainly working.

He finds that he doesn’t care as much as he should.

“I said that I’ll help with whatever it is you’re looking for,” he says, smiling softly when Viktor finally takes his hand. “And I will.”

“Are you forgetting the danger in being with me now?” Viktor asks, tone wry as he lets Yuuri lead him to his apartment.

“I’d never forget how dangerous you are,” Yuuri tells him. Viktor’s hand twitches in his grasp, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he says, “But that was one of the reasons I began admiring you, anyway. I don’t mind.”

“You admire me?”

Yuuri’s face heats at the slip, but he doesn’t refute Viktor’s question. He can be thankful, at least, that Viktor can’t see his face right now when he’s behind him. “I always have,” he confesses, looking forward as he gives Viktor’s hand a squeeze. He should probably let Viktor’s hand go now, having sufficiently assured him of his intentions, but Viktor doesn’t seem inclined to doing the same.

(In truth, Yuuri finds that he likes it. It’s been so long since he’s had this kind of human contact that he asked for of his own will.)

Viktor gives a few striding steps until they’re walking together, his shoulder bumping almost playfully against Yuuri's before he takes a step away from him. “I admire you too, you know,” he says, so casually that Yuuri almost doesn’t catch it.

But he does, and he coughs out a laugh. “What’s there to admire me for?”

Viktor smiles at him, thumb tracing circles on the back of his hand in such a gentle way that he feels his lungs halt in its breathing. Viktor says, “That you could be in the family that you’re in, and still be kind. That’s why you caught my eye, the first time.”

Yuuri’s heart stutters in his chest. The words are different, true, but they ring with a kind of familiarity that has his chest constricting just the same.

 

 

“ _You’re still too soft, as you’ve always been._ ”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Your father will be concerned when he finds out his _saiko-komon_ and _so-honbucho_ are in the same car together, dear.”

Mari glances up at the rear-view mirror, getting a glimpse of her mother smiling at her from the backseat of the car. They’re an image of contrast if any stranger were to look at them; where Mari is all casual in her knee-length khaki coat and bleached-blonde hair, her mother is tradition embodied— hair pulled up in a bun with no stray hairs left untucked, and wearing her wenge-colored _Edo komon_.

It’s no wonder that between the two of them, her mother was the one chosen to be his father’s first advisor in dealing with their legitimate businesses.

Mari gives a little shrug, looks back to the road, and says, “What ‘ _tousan_ doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Her mother huffs a laugh in response. “Were there no other drivers who could take me to Suzuki-san?” she asks.

“We have plenty of available drivers,” Mari answers, eyes back on the road. She huffs out a breath, wearing a small smile. She remembers the man’s slightest tremble of trepidation at first seeing her, how his eyes had widened for a fraction of a second and his throat had jumped with a gulp, and feels highly pleased. The man, seemingly respectful as he is, doesn’t feel very trustworthy to her. While she couldn’t take him out on her own, or have her father remove him from their business (as she had no proof of his misbehavior yet), it doesn’t mean she can’t scare him a little.

And so she says, “Doesn’t mean I don’t like to pay Suzuki-san a visit sometimes.”

Her mother giggles, one hand to her mouth when Mari peeks at her.

Still, she doesn’t let Mari off that easily. “Suzuki-san is a capable and loyal lawyer of ours,” her mother says, not so much scolding as she is just stating what she deems to be a fact. “Why must you intimidate him so?”

“He’s funny when he’s scared?”

Her mother laughs. “ _Mari_.”

“I like keeping him on his toes,” Mari says with a light shrug. She makes a left turn, making sure to check the side-mirrors for any following cars. “Just because I’m tasked with keeping watch over our home doesn’t mean I can’t go where I please.”

Her mother sighs. She says, perfectly well-meaning, “It’s not your job to be my bodyguard, dear. That’s why we have the _kumi-in_.”

Mari purses her lips at the very idea. “Yes, well, I was bored.”

She doesn’t have to look back to know that her mother is raising an eyebrow at her. The oncoming argument isn’t something that’s new, even more so in recent years.

“You had the option to be the _wakagashira_ , yet you chose not to take it,” her mother reminds her kindly. “I’m sure Yuuri wouldn’t have minded trading his job for yours.”

“I’d rather not deal with the _wakashu_ ,” Mari huffs. “Besides, Yuuri’s done a good job of keeping them in line. I’d hate to take that from him.”

Her mother sighs, and Mari imagines her placing a hand to her cheek as she reminisces. “He hated it at first, didn’t he?” She can visualize her mother’s soft smile here, nostalgic and fond, and she smiles in amusement.  “He’s come such a long way. He was so anxious, thinking that he was too young, or inexperienced, or a number of other things.”

Mari grins, and says, “And now he has them all wrapped around his finger. I’m not even sure he _knows_ it.”

Her mother hums in agreement. “I had thought, in giving him the position, he would have grown more confident. I’m glad that it’s helped him somewhat, but…”

“He’s just gotten better at playing confident,” Mari finishes, tapping a finger on the wheel. “It’s not true confidence, but it’s better than nothing.” Then she pauses, thinking for a bit, and smiles at the idea that plays through her mind. “Maybe we could just arrange something for him?”

Her mother makes a small noise at the suggestion. “An _omiai_? Our Yuuri wouldn’t allow that.”

“Oh, no. I meant a meeting with the Nikiforova _Bratva’s_ favorite son.” Mari chuckles. “Though I suppose it wouldn’t be all that different.”

Her mother laughs. “If only it were that easy. I’m still surprised that our Yuuri admires someone like him, but I suppose it helps to have something to strive for.”

“’ _Strive for’_ ,” Mari repeats, barely able to hide a snort of amusement. “If Nikiforov marries into our family, would that be allowed? Isn’t it a conflict of interest?”

“There would have to be a discussion, if it were to happen,” her mother says, surprisingly unruffled at Mari’s joking suggestion of Yuuri marrying a foreigner— and the second in line to Russia’s biggest _Bratva_ , at that. Tone full of fondness, her mother adds, “But if it makes Yuuri happy, I’m sure we could find a way to make it work.” Spoken so easily, as though it were a true possibility, what surprises Mari the most is how her mother could so calmly accept the notion of Yuuri marrying the powerful man he idolizes so much. It’s not so much the gender, or the nationality; Mari already knows how loved they (her and Yuuri both) are to understand that their parents would not begrudge them what they love.

The notion that her mother would not dismiss the possibility of Yuuri marrying Viktor Nikiforov, even as far-fetched an idea it sounds, is _something_.

“So it’s not that impossible, huh,” Mari muses, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

 _Ring-ring_.

She takes a quick peek at her phone she’d placed in a holder on the car’s dashboard. Her surprise at the name on the screen makes her pause long enough that the phone rings again, before she stops it with a quick swipe of her finger on the answer button.

“ _Mari-neesan?_ ”

“Yeah,” Mari says, looking back to the road as she uses her left hand to turn up her phone’s volume.

 “ _Are you driving?_ ”

“How’d you guess,” she drawls, eyes set on the road as she makes a turn to the left.

“ _Your voice is a little distant._ ” There’s a pause, and Mari starts to wonder just what it is that her brother wants. He rarely ever calls, if at all, and when he does, it’s usually something important. Maybe something about his missing Russian? “ _Neesan_ _?”_ he calls again, sounding somewhat wary, “ _Is Vicchan with you?_ ”

_Is there anyone else with you?_

“Vicchan is at home, with dad,” Mari replies, her grip only tightening for a flicker of a moment on the wheel before relaxing again. “Mom is with me. What’s up?”

“ _There’s someone I’m going to bring home, and I needed to warn someone first._ ”

“What, did you finally get someone from one of our houses?” Mari teases, to which their mother clicks her tongue at her. She huffs out a laugh, and presses on, “Want me to call one of our hotels instead? I could call up Kazuki-san— she’d be more than happy to provide you with a room for you and your guest.”

“ _You know that that isn’t what I want_.”

“Your standards are too high, Yuuri,” she says with a sigh. She smirks at the softly scolding look on their mother’s face. “You know it’s hard to find any silver-haired Russians-”

“ _Neesan!_ ”

Mari rolls her eyes.

“ _Is she talking about me?_ ”

She freezes at the new voice speaking from her phone. Her mother makes a confused noise at the sudden halt of their car in the middle of the road, up until she continues driving forward again.

“Who is that?” Mari asks, cautious. She catches their mother’s eye in the rear-view mirror; she looks understandably concerned and confused at Mari’s change in tone.

Muffled, but not enough that she can’t hear it, Yuuri says in English, “ _You said you didn’t understand Japanese._ ”

Far away, the stranger’s voice responds just the same, “ _I don’t, but she clearly said something about silver hair and something Russian._ ”

“ _How did you—? I can understand understanding the Russian part, but the hair—_ ”

“Yuuri,” Mari grounds out. There is a sudden silence on the phone and she huffs, satisfied at catching their attention. “Mind introducing us?”

“ _It’s…_ ”

There’s a rustle, and a grunt of what she assumes is annoyance. It’s a sound she’s very familiar with, having spent years in helping train Yuuri as one of their _wakagashira._ It wasn’t always an easy job, after all, to try and look after multiple _wakashu_ just to keep them in line.

Then,

“ _It’s Viktor, nee-san. I found him._ ”

Her car screeches to a halt at the front of their inn, earning her a yelp of “ _Mari!_ ” from the backseat.

“Yuuri,” Mari begins, hands squeezing at the wheel, “ _explain._ ”

 

* * *

 

“When I said that it wouldn’t be surprising if Nikiforov ended up marrying Yuuri, I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.”

“What?!” Yuuri splutters.

“I’m talking to _kaasan_ ,” Mari snaps, waving a hand at him in agitation as she paces the entirety of his apartment— which isn’t that big to begin with— with her phone to her ear. To their mother, she says, “This is suspicious— I don’t care if Yuuri idolizes the man, I can’t trust him to mean well when he abandoned his own family to traipse around our town with no good reason for it.”

“ _Ugh_.”

“Is your sister always like this?” Viktor asks, a curious look on his face as he watches her from his place by the _kotatsu._ “She seems very... _angry_.”

“She wouldn’t be, if you’d just chosen to give us a proper visit instead,” Yuuri mutters, lips pursed as he settles back down to sit to Viktor’s right under the kotatsu. “I just let it pass because—” _I admire you, and for all that my brain is screaming to be suspicious of you I just can’t,_ “— I’m sure you have a good reason for coming all this way without prior warning.”

“Do you like me that much?”                                                                                                             

Yuuri, having been in the middle of drinking water, almost chokes at the question. “Wh-what? Why would you—”

“The average person would be suspicious of a stranger, and a foreign one at that, suddenly coming over and saying that he’s here to meet you.” Viktor props his chin over the back of his hand, smiling at him in a way that screams of slyness. “And yet, you take me with you, and you let me into your home.”

“This is just my apartment,” Yuuri murmurs, wiping at the water that had escaped his mouth from surprise. “And you’re the second in line for _Pakhan_. I want to believe that you wouldn’t risk so much for something that isn’t important.”

“And if I did?” Viktor asks, cocking his head to one side in question. “Would you admire me any less?”

“Well then,” Yuuri says, setting away his glass of water before he can accidentally spill it again from any new revelations. “Why not tell me the reason so I can judge whether or not it’s important?”

Viktor laughs, and Yuuri feels his heart pause in its beating. It’s _foolish_ , how he’s too easily affected by a man who barely even knows him. How much worse would it be, if Viktor ever knew the true depth of Yuuri’s admiration for him? Would he laugh? Would he think Yuuri pitiful?

“If I did it for love?” Viktor tries, blue eyes sparkling with mirth. “What then?”

Yuuri frowns at him, quickly taken out of his thoughts at Viktor’s joking words. The idea of it— Viktor, abandoning his family for the sake of something as whimsical as _love_ _—_ doesn’t add up. It doesn’t fit the image of the man he knows: ruthless, cunning, and far above and beyond Yuuri’s grasp. It’s beneath even his own _wakashu_ , who would sooner chop off their own pinky fingers for his sake than do anything for _love_.

“Would you?” he asks instead.

Viktor blinks at him, though his smile doesn’t waver. “Would I what? Do it for love?”

“Would you be so disloyal as to abandon your own family, all for the sake of love?” Yuuri asks, gaze hard as he observes the flicker of emotion over Viktor’s face.

Viktor’s smile finally wavers, replaced by an unsure frown. “You make it sound like I did something drastic.”

Yuuri can feel his blood pressure rising to the roof at Viktor’s answer, never mind the fact that his body is in a perfectly healthy condition. He hisses, overtaken with anger at Viktor’s blithe disregard for his own welfare, “You left your family and flew to _Japan_ , all without mentioning it to _anyone!_ Even your _sister_ was concerned enough to look for help from someone outside of your own _family!_ ”

Viktor— strong, unflappable Viktor— barely manages to hide a flinch. Yuuri’s ire all too quickly withers like a lit matchstick on a windy day, and he sits back down onto folded legs. What kind of right did he even have to speak like that to Viktor? He wasn’t even family, much less a _friend_. With his head bowed and his clenched fists pressed to his lap, he says, “I’m sorry, I— I don’t know what came over me.”

Mari whistles a low tune of amusement. Yuuri whips his head up to shoot her a look, but she only smiles slyly. She says, entirely in English, “Never thought I’d see the day that my brother snaps like that at anyone who isn’t family. Figures it’d be for his idol.”

“Idol?” Viktor parrots, turning to look at him with wide eyes.

(It’s _bewildering_ , how quickly Viktor recovers from his earlier shock to smile brightly at him.)

“ _Neesan_ , you’re not helping!” Yuuri snaps in Japanese, turning his head away from Viktor before he can give anything else away with the expression on his face. “What did _kaasan_ say, anyway?”

Mari rolls her eyes at him, clearly unimpressed at his attempt to distract Viktor from his questioning. Instead of answering the question, Mari asks back, “Did you contact Phichit already?”

He shakes his head. “I wasn’t sure if it would be safe. It’s why I called you first.”

“Huh,” she hums, smiling at him. Her expression is soft, entirely unlike the smile she wears around anyone else, and he feels himself smile back without much prompting. “And here I thought you’d take matters into your own hands.”

He makes a face at her teasing. “I come to help my _wakashu_ once, and now you never let me live it down.”

She chuckles. “Well, it wouldn’t do for you to forget. You’re stubborn; it’s not like that kind of scenario will never happen again just because we call it out once.”

He pauses, considering it. Would his patience last him long enough to not help one of his _wakashu_ again when they’re being incompetent? It takes him a beat of a second before he sighs, grudgingly acquiescing to her argument with a grumbled, “That’s fair.”

“In any case,” Mari begins, sending a hard look Viktor’s way. She makes no move to sit down with them, still very much wary of Viktor— for good reason, which Yuuri has been lacking ever since Viktor came. “We need to have a serious discussion about your presence here, _Nikiforov_. Much as we don’t know how it works in your _Bratva_ , we know how it works in our family, and we don’t always take kindly to foreign strangers coming unannounced to our town.”

Viktor gives him a look from the corner of his eye, and he bites the inside of his cheek, hoping against hope that he’s not visibly blushing.

“Yuuri was very kind to me, though,” Viktor says, hell-bent on pushing his way into the door leading to Yuuri’s life. Yuuri doesn’t understand what he did to deserve this; one dance and a bit of conversation aren’t worth any of this, for all that his friends like to joke that it is. Love at first sight just doesn’t _exist_ , and Viktor is hardly the kind of person who can allow himself to fall in love so carelessly.

Yuuri is barely even on the same level as him, for all that he is his father’s second in command, and even _he_ knows he can’t afford to throw his heart around.

“Yuuri does what he wants,” Mari says with a shrug, thankfully not expounding on her answer.

Viktor, on the other hand, seems determined on making him suffer mentally. He hums, eyes gleaming with curiosity as he continues staring at Yuuri, as though he would get any and all of his answers by staring hard enough. “Oh? Is just anyone in your family capable of affording such impunity?”

Mari smirks at the very idea. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“How special are you?” Viktor asks, turning his gaze away from Mari to look at him. His heart thumps loudly in his ears as he avoids the searing gaze Viktor points his way. “Who are you to the family, that you could choose to make an exception for me?”

Yuuri freezes at the question.

He doesn’t have to look up to know that Mari is staring at him. Even his mind, a constant whirlwind as it is with what he has to do, what he has to _be_ , comes to a halt. Carelessly, foolishly, he’d _forgotten_.

_Viktor still doesn’t know who he is._

“Does he not know?” Mari says in Japanese, echoing Yuuri’s thoughts so clearly that he feels his voice catch in his throat. Her gaze is sharp when Yuuri looks to her. All he can do is stare helplessly back, because he had only meant to ask for her help in understanding just what it was that Viktor wanted.

(He hadn’t meant for things to get so much more _complicated_ because of him.)

He turns to Viktor, catching Mari’s eye as he turns, and says with a dry smile, “There’s a reason that I can afford to carelessly take you in, as you’ve said. It doesn’t matter what I do.”

He swallows, ignoring the disappointed frown that Mari is likely throwing his way.

“I’m nothing to them, Viktor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic notes (apologies if I've got the info all wrong- all I've got is the internet and google lmao, i'm open to corrections though!!):
> 
> saiko-komon = an advisor of sorts for the oyabun (leader), mostly oversees the group's legitimate business affairs (e.g. hotels, restaurants)  
> so-honbucho = the headquarters chief, in charge of the family's main office and logistics. May also be the one to plan trips and prepare vehicles  
> wakagashira = the first lieutenant and second in command to the oyabun, is in charge of the wakashu  
> wakashu = in charge of their respective areas, may handle certain gangs, businesses, etc.
> 
> As always, thank you for taking the time to read my fic!! I'd appreciate if you let me know in the comments if there's anything you'd like to be fixed, or added, or if there's anything you liked about the fic! ♥♥

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you liked it, have any suggestions, want a continuation, or anything else, let me know in the comments! ♥♥


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